The Examiner has obtained an exclusive interview with one of the neighbors responsible for detaining the accused perpetrator in a fatal shooting in Orange County that occurred July 7. According to the woman, who asked not to be named, the accused suspect, 40-year-old Amanda Lee Parker of Mauriceville, was actually laughing after she reportedly shot 42-year-old Natalie Jeanne Little of Mauriceville twice in the head and left her dying in the front yard of an Orange County residence.

According to news releases from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, on Monday, July 7, at about 10:06 p.m., the Orange County Sheriff’s Office received a 9-1-1 call in reference to a shooting in the 6900 block of Swisher Street in Mauriceville.

When deputies arrived, they found a 42-year-old victim with a gunshot wound to her head. According to OCSO, the victim, later identified as Little, was still breathing at the time. Emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene and transported her to Baptist Hospital in Orange where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

The deputies located 40-year-old Amanda Lee Parker of Mauriceville at a residence in the 7800 block of Roger Street, an address near where the victim had been shot. Police detained her at the time, and detectives gathered evidence and statements from witnesses at the scene before arresting Parker on murder charges. She was arraigned on the morning of July 8 by Judge David Peck and is being held at the Orange County Jail on $1 million bond.

Witnesses told detectives that the incident began when Parker went to a residence in the 6900 block of Swisher Street in Mauriceville where the shooting later occurred. Upon her arrival, deputies report, Parker was met outside in the front yard by the victim, who did not live at the residence. A verbal argument ensued and Parker pulled out a handgun, shooting Little twice with the revolver, according to OCSO. After fatally wounding the first victim, Parker then chased a female resident of the house, who ran to a neighbor’s house in the 7800 block of Roger Street. The woman told neighbors at the home that she was being chased and to call 9-1-1. When Parker entered the home behind the female, the residents in the home were able to restrain Parker and take the weapon away from her. Deputies arrived shortly thereafter and took Parker into custody.

One of the neighbors who resides on Roger Street where the resident reportedly fled after the shooting and who helped detain Parker until law enforcers arrived spoke with The Examiner on July 9. The woman described what happened that fateful night as she and her family sat in their living room, unaware of the events that were about to unfold.

“We were inside the house when all of sudden, this blonde woman ran in the house and told us to call the cops,” the woman recalled. “We thought she was joking at first, but then realized she wasn’t. She asked us to go outside and check on her son. That’s when another woman came up into our yard in a black truck. I thought it was a friend of the blonde woman’s. It wasn’t. She got out of the truck holding a gun, and she tried to come into the house. She was pointing the gun at us. I told her she couldn’t go inside, that I had a baby in the house and I wasn’t letting her inside. Then, she pushed past us and ran into the house.”

The witness said that about that time, her husband, who had been showering, emerged from the bathroom of the residence. The suspect turned the gun on him, but was trying to get into a back room of the house where the female victim who had run inside was hiding. That is when he pounced, reports his spouse.

“He grabbed the gun, and we struggled with her,” she said. “He got the gun from her, and we beat her up all the way out the door into the front yard. She was just laughing the whole time. When we went outside to check on the blonde woman’s son, we saw the woman in the other yard with a hole in her head. She had been shot twice in the head.”

When asked what the suspected shooter and victim were arguing about just prior to the shots being fired, OCSO Chief Deputy Clint Hodgkinson said that is still under investigation and no other details could be released at this time. The neighbor said she did not hear the argument between the two women. She also reports the suspect’s family picked up the black truck, which was left at her house after the shooting. She said they told her it was “a crime of passion.” Other media outlets have reported that the deceased victim and the shooter had been romantically involved, but the neighbor said she is not so sure. According to her, Parker once resided at the house on Swisher Street with the victim who fled to her home, and that she believed the two had been in a relationship. She said Little, the shooting victim, was likely at the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I think the woman in the black truck (Parker) went over to shoot the blonde woman and was surprised by the other woman,” she opined.

The case is still under investigation, and an autopsy has been ordered, OCSO reports.

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